I have never been so happy to see a parking space in my life. Three hours on the A4 from Calais, a detour through what I am fairly certain was someone's beetroot field, and then the final indignity: following the sat nav into a dead end so narrow I had to reverse past a bakery window, earning a round of applause from three elderly gentlemen enjoying their morning pastries. I bowed. They waved. Welcome to Erfurt.

The property itself sits in a quiet residential pocket just north of the old town, the sort of place where neighbours water window boxes with military precision. My host had left a key in a ceramic frog by the door, which I promptly knocked over trying to retrieve it. The frog survived. My dignity did not.

The kitchen, I discovered, was compact but surprisingly well-equipped. This mattered enormously because I had arrived with grand ambitions. Before leaving England I had watched approximately forty-seven YouTube videos on Thuringian cuisine and was determined to cook something authentic. I had even packed my own dried sage, which I now realise is the culinary equivalent of bringing sand to the beach. Thuringia practically sweats sage. It grows in pavement cracks. I saw a dog sniffing a sage bush with more expertise than I will ever possess.

My first morning, I walked to the weekly market at Domplatz. The cathedral square spreads out like a stage set, all medieval timber and sudden spires. I bought Thuringian sausages from a woman who tolerated my GCSE German with the patience of a saint, then added potatoes, white cabbage, and a jar of Born mustard that I immediately dropped but somehow caught against my thigh. The bruise lasted a week. The mustard was sensational.

That evening I attempted Rostbratwurst with sauerkraut. The sausages split. The sauerkraut reduced to something approaching a condiment. I ate standing at the counter, drinking a bottle of Koster beer I had found in the corner shop, and felt genuinely proud of my failure. There is something about cooking badly in a foreign kitchen that connects you to a place more intimately than any restaurant reservation.

Speaking of restaurants, I quickly abandoned my self-catering principles. The Fischers on Futterstrasse became my regular haunt, a proper old Gastsatte with dark wood and regulars who looked carved from it. The pork knuckle arrived with crackling like a geological formation. I needed a small axe. The waiter, sensing my Englishness perhaps, brought extra napkins without comment. I appreciated his discretion.

The pub culture here rewards the curious. I found a microbrewery tucked behind the merchant's bridge, the Kramerbrucke, where a bearded enthusiast explained his brewing process for twenty minutes while I nodded and drank samples I could no longer taste properly. His passion was infectious. His beer was eleven percent. I stumbled home through cobblestones that seemed to move independently.

My most successful cooking attempt came late in the week. I returned to Domplatz market, this time with purpose, and assembled ingredients for Thuringian dumplings. The landlady had left a handwritten note suggesting a particular flour blend available at the bio-market on Schloserstrasse. I found it, followed her instructions precisely, and produced something that actually resembled food. They were dense. They were earnest. They tasted of potato and persistence. I ate four and needed a lie down.

What struck me finally was how eating here becomes a rhythm rather than an event. Morning bread from the bakery I had reversed past, afternoon coffee and cake in a courtyard somewhere, evening beer and whatever the kitchen offers. I stopped planning meals and started accepting them. The property's small garden, which I had initially dismissed, became my breakfast spot, watching neighbours begin their precise routines while I ate cheese I could not pronounce.

On my final morning I returned the key to the ceramic frog with genuine affection. I left the remaining sage on the counter for the next optimistic English cook. Some failures deserve to be shared.